Zimbabwe holds its general election on Wednesday, August 23 from 7am to 7pm, with voting designated to take place at 12,374 polling stations around the country. This factsheet outlines what voters can, and cannot do in and around the polling station.
Can you hang around a polling station?
After voting people are not allowed to hang around a polling station. However, the regulations allow for people to be at least 300 metres away but not in crowds. Under sweeping national law and order statutes, the police can separately remove people from situations deemed to be a threat to the maintenance of peace.
What of people who refuse to leave the polling station after they vote?
The Electoral Act states, in Section 90, that any person who, without lawful excuse, refuses or fails to leave a polling station when lawfully required to do so by the presiding officer shall be guilty of an offense and liable to a fine … or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding three months or to both such fine and such imprisonment.
What you are not allowed to do at a polling station
- Enter a polling station without the permission of an electoral officer
- Willfully disrupt voting
- Interfere with a voter who is marking his or her ballot paper
- Be intoxicated by liquor or drugs
- Chant political party slogans
- Distribute leaflets or pamphlets on behalf of any candidate or political party
- Use cameras or phones inside of polling stations
- Wear party regalia
What are you expected to do at your polling station?
- Enter the polling station where you are registered
- Present your valid national ID so the polling officer checks that you are on the voters roll for that polling station
- You are then issued with a ballot paper by the polling officer
- The polling officer then marks your finger with indelible ink
- Make your way to the ballot booth to mark ballots and deposit them in respective ballot boxes
- You then exit the polling station
Sources
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
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